JACC: Advances is honored to recognize our 2022 Young Author Awardees and their mentors. The Young Author Awards are given to promising young investigators in the field of cardiovascular medicine. This award is particularly important at JACC: Advances as we have a special interest in supporting researchers in the early stages of their career.
Paper: Augmented intelligence to identify patients with advanced heart failure in an integrated health system
Awardee: Baljash (Josh) Cheema, MD, MSCI, MSAI
Dr Baljash Cheema is an Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology fellow at Northwestern University. He completed his cardiology training at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He also has a Master of Science degree in clinical investigation from Northwestern University. Dr Cheema became interested in machine learning and artificial intelligence during his internal medicine training and subsequently completed an Artificial Intelligence in Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship and a Master of Science degree in artificial intelligence. His has worked to deploy a deep learning–derived ultrasound tool into the COVID intensive care units and is developing an artificial intelligence tool that interprets 3-dimensional echocardiography images in heart failure patients. In his paper titled “Augmented Intelligence to Identify Patients with Advanced Heart Failure in an Integrated Health System”, Dr Cheema et al used machine learning to develop an augmented intelligence-enabled workflow to identify patients with stage D heart failure and streamline referrals. His goal is to continue to develop artificial intelligence tools to treat patients with advanced heart failure and cardiomyopathies.
Mentor: Faraz Ahmad, MD, MS
Dr Faraz Ahmad is an Assistant Professor of Medicine-Cardiology and Preventive Medicine-Health and Biomedical Informatics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, He is also the Associate Director of the Bluhm Cardiovascular Center for Artificial Intelligence at Northwestern Medicine and a practicing heart failure cardiologist. Dr Ahmad’s research interests are in the application of data science and the development and implementation of digital health technologies to improve the quality of care and patient-centered outcomes for patients with heart failure and other cardiovascular conditions. He has expertise in biomedical informatics, implementation science, and pragmatic clinical trial methodology. His research is advancing these emerging fields of cardiology and is supported by multiple funding organizations including the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the American Heart Association, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the Heart Failure Society of America, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Paper: Risk factors for atrial arrhythmias in adults with ebstein anomaly
Awardee: Irene Martin de Miguel, MD
Dr Irene Martin de Miguel is an Adult Congenital Heart Disease Clinic research fellow at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester. Originally from Spain, she completed her cardiology training at the Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital in Madrid, Spain. She also has expertise in pulmonary hypertension. Her research interests in congenital heart disease are broad and include Ebstein anomaly, invasive hemodynamic evaluation of congenital heart disease, and the Fontan circulation. In her paper titled “Risk Factors for Atrial Arrhythmias in Adults with Ebstein Anomaly”, Dr Martin de Miguel et al examined atrial arrhythmias in more than 600 adults with Ebstein anomaly and found that, despite a relatively young cohort with a median age of 36 years, atrial arrhythmias were common and a significant cause of morbidity with high recurrence rates. In addition to congenital heart disease research, she is completing a PhD on the impact of the microbiome and the immune system on the progression of atherosclerosis. She has received 3 national research awards for her research contributions.
Mentor: Alexander C. Egbe, MD, MPH
Dr Alexander Egbe is a Professor of Medicine, clinical investigator, and cardiologist at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. He completed housemanship training at Nnamdi Azikiwe University College of Health Science in Nigeria, fellowship training in pediatric cardiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center, and fellowship training in adult congenital heart disease at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He has a Master of Public Health degree from John Moores University in Liverpool, England, and a Master of Science degree in clinical and translational science from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He currently has multiple R01 grants from the National Heart Lung Blood Institute and is the project lead for the Mayo Adult Congenital Heart Disease Registry and the Mayo Adult Congenital Heart Disease Biobank. He is a leading adult congenital heart disease researcher with a focus on hemodynamics, pathophysiology, and clinical outcomes in adults with congenital heart disease.